


The (Mostly) Magnificent Seven

by chthonianCrocuta (lovesthesoundof)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 08:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3168224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesthesoundof/pseuds/chthonianCrocuta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of justice. Kinda.</p><p>When con-artist Roxy Lalonde was approached by one of the most notorious thieves of her lifetime, the Marquise Mindfang, she didn't expect to be asked for help. But the Marquise had a daring plan to steal the Emerald Heart - casino magnate and infamous gang boss Carom "Doc Scratch" Felt's prize gemstone - and Roxy, and her long-time partner Porrim, had the connections she needed to get a crew together for the heist. Each with their own reasons for needing the money, they agreed.</p><p>Neither of them expected to fall in love along the way - much less with the same woman - and now, over a year later, it's going to be difficult to tell their girlfriend's ancestor the story of how they met...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The (Mostly) Magnificent Seven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scrunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrunch/gifts).



> Just a few things before we start:
> 
> 1) I promise this is a heist fic. I just felt the need to frame it in things I am actually good at. Dear recipient, I am deeply sorry if you hate all the stuff around the heist; so long as you read the first-person sections and flashbacks, and skim the dialogue of the rest, you won't have missed any of the plot. I hope.
> 
> 2) Anyone who's seen Hustle may recognise a lot of the heist plot from the season 2 finale, but that doesn't mean you don't need to watch 2x6 after reading this - there are some twists I don't include and the show has some wonderfully engaging characters - or that if you've seen 2x6 you know all of what's going to happen in this fic.
> 
> 3) If you see anything framed in //double slashes//, the character is speaking Alternian. Anything //in "quotes" between double slashes// is an English word in an otherwise Alternian sentence, and vice versa. I know this is a bit clunky, but it's the only way I can effectively represent code-switching when the You character understands both languages.
> 
> Enjoy!

You arrive on the dot of six forty five, nervous and dancing on the balls of your feet in the cold. Beside you, Porrim is six feet and change of unshakeable calm in a long black dress that dips, perhaps, just a little too low at the front for a family dinner. It doesn't bother you; even if you were one to talk about propriety, you like her in it too much to argue.

"Take a breath, sweetie," she reminds you. "A whole one."

You smile ruefully. "Easy for you to say. You've met an ancestor under peaceful circumstances."

"Mama Dolorosa doesn't count." You roll your eyes. Porrim squeezes your shoulder. "Roxy, relax. We'll be fine. Just don't make any sudden moves - "

"And don't stare in her eyes, I know. Rosie already sent me a warning text. She was pretty firm about the stare part."

She quirks a pierced eyebrow at you. "Are stares a particular problem for your family?"

You grin. "Depends how much we've had to drink."

Porrim groans _oh, come on_ , but she's smiling as she presses the doorbell. A sound like a dragon's roar makes you jump, and even Porrim flinches back a little, blinking. "...Okay."

You give her a flat look. "Now do you see why I'm terrified?"

Fortunately for your nerves it's Tula who gets the door, so instead of having to immediately deal with the dragon gnawing on your subconscious mind you get a drawn out _eyyyy!_ and boisterous hugs and kisses. These have a way of making you feel better. That feeling lasts even after she's let you go and bounced on Porrim instead - Porrim, who is big enough and strong enough to hold her in an embrace, who looks down at her and smooths back her hair and murmurs "hey, babe" with a look like she wants to eat her alive.

You will never, ever be over how hot these two are.

"So how is the Dragon Lady?" you ask as Tula ushers the two of you indoors.

Tula rolls her eyes. "Workin' her ass off, as per the usual. MOM - " You wince at the volume, and relax only when Porrim's hand on your shoulder reminds you you're not in your mother's house any more. " - PUT THE PEN DOWN AND STEP AWAY FROM THE PAPERWORK!"

A pause, then footsteps on the upstairs landing. A light tread. A familiar, accented voice. "I'm not your mother, child. And what have I told you about shouting through the hive?"

Tula gives you a conspiratorial wink. "Yeah, but you _were_ holding a pen, right?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that at this time." Bare grey feet on the stairs. Shit, you better take off your shoes. You're hopping gracelessly on one foot to do so when Redglare rounds the corner, and for the first time you realise she's shorter than Tula as well as narrower. In a red suit and heels she was intimidating. Now, barefoot in a black turtleneck and slacks, she just looks tired. She smiles, in a forced, Alternian way. "Lalonde. You look terrified."

"Well, you did threaten to kill me that one time," you point out, trying to soften your own rictus into a more friendly expression. Apparently your hindbrain is still having trouble thinking of her as a person instead of a predator.

Your girlfriend's...not-really-a-mother adjusts her red-tinted glasses. "Bygones, poppet; you're practically _family_ now." The human-English word fairly drips with disdain, and though it doesn't help your nerves you don't blame her. For a troll in a human-dominated area, the two greatest enemies are bigotry and bureaucracy. You can't imagine having to jump through as many cultural hoops as she has just to be allowed to stay planetside. When you take the offered handshake, the respect behind the gesture on your part is genuine. Seeming satisfied, Redglare turns to Porrim. "And Maryam. You've never been as frightened of me as I'd like."

Porrim holds out two open hands, palms up, as much as to say she's unarmed. "Ancestor Pyrope." She's not rising to the remark, but she's not denying it either.

Redglare sniffs. "They haven't quite beaten all the respect out of you. Very good. So." She claps her hands. "Now we share food, share talk, try to find some common ground and a few reasons not to kill each other; is that the gist of it? Good. Latula, fetch your sister and Aradia. They're executing scalemates on the balcony."

Without further ado, she departs for the kitchen. Tula waits until she's around the corner before planting a quick kiss on your lips. "Better go do the thing," she says, conspiratorially quiet. "I'm not kissing you, gorgeous - " This to Porrim, who she swats playfully on the ass on her way toward the stairs. " - I know you and you'd stop me from _stopping_ kissing you!"

Porrim laughs and blows her a kiss anyway. You ought to be more into this than you are, and it's because a thought has lodged itself in your head and won't leave. A memory. "Is that Aradia as in..."

"Megido?" You're not misremembering, then. Porrim has the same thought. But that's all she says about it; she's looking at the photographs on the wall, some of them aerial shots with what might be the wing of an aeroplane cutting off part of the view. "Look at that. What a middle finger to the masquerade."

Oh. It's not an aeroplane's wing. It's a dragon's wing. One of the family must have taken these shots herself, a parody of the prosaic local photographs you'd see in an upper middle class home. "Damn."

Porrim smiles in that self-satisfied way she does after blood. "I like these people. Cahoots are possible."

Tula chooses this moment to come thundering back down the stairs three at a time. She swings around the banister post and sticks the landing in the hallway, pausing only to wave at you both - "gonna go help with the eats!" - before haring off into the kitchen. Two yellowhorns, you'd have to guess about six sweeps or so, follow her down.

"Hey Terezi," says the odd one out, "your sister's girlfriends are here."

The little one - wow, she is _tiny_ \- gives her a shove. "I know! I heard them from upstairs. Come here, quadrants-in-law; I want to smell you."

"We do not lick the guests, Terezi," Redglare calls from the kitchen.

Terezi calls back "I promise!" and hops confidently down the last two steps to meet you. Her bony hands pat at the air; her ruined red eyes stare at nothing. You crouch down and guide her fingers to your face so she can get a look at you. She sniffs quietly, rapidly, like a cat. "Mmm. Candyfloss pink! This one can stay."

"Holy sh- " You catch yourself. " - how'd you do that?"

She smiles meanly at you. "Oh, I never get sick of _that_ question. Jadeblood, come here, you smell like mint humbugs!"

Effectively dismissed, you turn to the other - Aradia - and give her a sheepish shrug. She comes over to you and shakes your hand as if she doesn't mind that it's a human thing. "Sorry about her. She's kind of mean."

You smile gamely. "Eh, I deserved that. It was a rude question. I'm Roxy, by the way, hi."

"Hello, Roxy!" She has a nice smile. "I'm Aradia - and I'm being dragged, sorry!" Terezi has finished with Porrim and come back to reclaim her friend. "The dining room is through here!"

"And all of you will be seated!" Terezi declares imperiously, towing Aradia through a doorway. "Her Tyranny does not tolerate delays to dinnertime!"

You're beginning to understand what Tula meant about her sister. You're also beginning to think your hunch was right. Quietly you point out to Porrim, "The horns, the hair, the accent - Megido, Megido, Megido, right?"

Porrim casts a flat look after the two teenagers. "I'm gonna go with yes."

You were afraid of that. "There's basically no way we can avoid telling the story now, is there."

"Probably not. But hey - " She shrugs. " - it's fine. Double jeopardy, right?"

"That one only works if you made it to trial," you mutter, and head into the dining room.

**== > Roxy: Go to dinnertime.**

There's not much preamble. Though they've been forced to follow the local human customs to an extent, the Pyropes seem to have excised that painful pre-dinner time when everyone awkwardly tries to talk to each other for a while when they'd much rather just start eating. You've always found that appealing about Alternians, how few fucks they give. It makes it easier to give less fucks yourself.

Once everything's been brought through, on no less than seven plates, you're even more keen to eat. You have never seen so many meat and bug products on one table and you and the girls eat Alternian all the damn time. There are no prayers to say or ceremonies to stand on, so you go straight for the spicy crickets as Tula pointedly asks if everybody at the table is taking their meds - it seems a harsh callout even by Alternian standards until you see all three Pyropes hold out pills in their hands, and when Porrim produces a hemochromatin capsule from her purse you feel almost left out.

"We have a pact in this household," Redglare explains with a thin smile. You can tell it makes her uncomfortable.

"Only way I stay on 'em day to day," says Tula, shouldering the blame. "Good habits start in multiplayer, amirite?"

You'd feel bad about starting a gaming conversation, but Aradia, goddess bless her, instantly pipes up that endgame is _always_ multiplayer and that you only know how good you are once other people are involved, and in between mouthfuls you join in the gaming/life philosophy conversation and until there's a lull in the talk (which is inevitable when there's this much good food around) you actually forget that you're sitting at the same table as Redglare.

The legislacerator.

"So," she says abruptly into the relative quiet - and you can really _feel_ the two-moon accent on that word, _tso_ , a hiss of steam from the dragon's mouth - "how did you three meet?"

You and Porrim both go to talk at once, and in the first two seconds you realise you've reached for two different cover stories. Tula shushes you both with a hiss and a wave of her hand, then turns to Redglare. "Mom. Please. You said you wouldn't corner them." Then, in Alternian, //We had an accord.//

Redglare sighs through her teeth and puts down her drink. //Descendant, you worry too much. I'm a "lawyer" these days, not a legislacerator.// She has to say "lawyer" in English, and after a sentence in Alternian her accent is even spikier. //I don't _enforce_ the law. I just argue about what it means.//

//And put "bad guys" away!// Terezi chirps. You almost wish you were recording this conversation as an _epic_ example of English/Alternian codeswitching.

"One does one's best," says Redglare, once more in prim English. "On that note: Lalonde. Speak your piece. I want to hear the miscreant explain herself."

Terezi cackles gleefully. You get the distinct feeling she smells blood in the water and cast a hopeful glance at Porrim. "By that logic, shouldn't it be the both of us who - "

"No." Redglare is adamant. "Maryam's jade is satisfaction enough for my old-fashioned moonlit sensibilities. _You_ , Pinky, are the one with something to prove." Latula hisses an Alternian protest; Redglare holds up a hand for peace. "Besides that, under two moons I heard enough trolls spin tales of their great victories. We will have a human story tonight."

"A story of justice!" Terezi crows, flashing bug-stained teeth in a gleeful grin.

Redglare seems about to talk her down, but you risk it and cut her off: "Actually, it kinda is..."

And now everyone's looking at you - especially your girlfriend's mother, over the top of her glasses - so you might as well keep going.

**== > Roxy: Story time.**

This is my story, so I'll tell it any way I please. Isn't that how trolls start a story? I always liked that attitude; this is my turn to speak, so I'm speaking my truth and to hell whatever the rest of y'all have to say about it. Which, for this story, is a whole hell of a lot. We were in the papers. We were on the _six o'clock news_ , kiddies. Tonight's top story: Roxy Lalonde is the baddest-ass badass that ever did bad an ass. Or something. Whatever. Our names weren't read out and you never saw our mugshots, but if you knew what to look for you could see our writing all over it.

The writing said, The Emerald Heart Is Gone.

For anyone at this table who's been living under a rock, the Emerald Heart is the centerpiece of the Felt Collection, privately owned by Doctor Carom Felt...better known to most folks as Doc Scratch. This guy is _big time_. Ever heard of the Angel? The Green Star? Both his places, along with half the Derse strip. The only serious competitor is the Midnight, and you better believe that's been a bloody rivalry over the years. The Felt and the Midnight Crew are like the Montagues and Capulets of Derse, except with less of the stupid teenagers falling in love and - anyway. Snowman and Doc Scratch have hated each other since forever, their gangs clash over money and territory, it's messy. Anyone who can survive in that kind of world has to be ruthless, and Doc Scratch beats them all.

It was his gemstone we set out to steal.

**== > Roxy: Confirm the facts of the case for Pyrope the Youngest.**

"So he's definitely a bad guy?" Terezi asks, less of you in particular than of the table in general.

Aradia spits out a shell into her hand and drops it on the side of her plate. Her expression is grim. "He's a bad guy. My cousin Damara - " Yeeup, there it is. " - curses //red miles// whenever people say his name."

"He has folks killed and everything," you add. "Anybody who gets in his way, whether they meant to or not, whether they make it up to him or not - boom. Disappeared. Not exactly your victim material right there."

Terezi looks to her mother for confirmation. Redglare has taken off her glasses; she's rubbing the bridge of her nose, as though even the mention of Doc Scratch causes headaches. "He got off on a technicality."

Terezi slaps the table hard enough to make the cutlery rattle. "I wanna punch him in the dick!"

"Terezi Pyrope," says Redglare coolly (she didn't even _blink_ , Jesus, you almost jumped out of your skin), "I raised you better than that." There's a deliberate pause of half a moment while she selects another morsel of meat, then: "You have absolutely no proof that he has a dick."

As Porrim almost chokes on her drink, you decide you might get along with your girlfriend's family after all. Cahoots, as Porrim put it, are possible.

**== > Roxy: Get back on topic.**

Anyways, as much as Doc Scratch deserves any kind of punch in the possibly-existing dick a person could give him, I was in no hurry to annoy the guy. I'd always avoided getting in the way of his interests, same as you do with any powerful gang. They're dangerous people, I am mostly not, I like being alive...you get the idea.

But when an opportunity like that drops into your lap, sometimes you have reasons for taking the risk.

A little background: when all this started I was what you'd call a hustler, a confidence lady. I convinced greedy people to bet more money than they could afford to lose, made my profits, walked away. I'd been working short cons on whatever assholes I could pick out of the crowd, deliberately choosing marks I didn't have to feel guilty about screwing over, before I met Porrim. She'd done bigger jobs in the past with a couple of different crews, and between us we started to hit bigger targets: twisted officials, corrupt businessmen, fat-cat bankers. Playing a modern Robin Hood is a difficult game; you have to be sure your marks are dirty, but the fact that they are works for you. Their own greed is what hooks them. You convince them they can cheat you, or cheat someone else, or cheat the system, or cheat the world, and they hand you the money all by themselves.

So we were grifters. Not thieves. Not that we thought we were better than thieves, it just wasn't our game. But we did have connections - a lot of them, after a few solid years of working cons - and they were the kind of connections a thief could use, if she were looking to put together a crew for a serious heist.

And the woman looking to do that was none other than Spinneret Mindfang.

**== > Roxy: Pause for effect.**

It's not just for effect. You'd also like to be sure that Redglare isn't going to rip you apart any time soon. From what you could tell the last time you two met, she and Mindfang have some sort of history. Apparently everyone else at the table is aware of the same; all eyes (even Terezi's, approximately) are on the matriarch.

She pointedly snaps a pork rib in half between thumbs and forefingers - in that moment you think you're going to catch some degree of hell - then sighs through her nose, sets the broken pieces down on her plate and steeples her fingers.

"Continue."

So you do.

**== > Roxy: Introduce the crew.**

For anybody who hasn't heard the name, Mindfang - the "Marquise" Mindfang, as she likes to style herself - made her name with a few big, flashy thefts during the rebellion, and largely got away with it by joining the winning side and getting a pardon in exchange for her help against the old regime. She's also allegedly behind some serious jobs planetside, none of which she's ever done time for. What she's probably most famous for in Derse is being one of the few people brave or stupid enough to try to steal from Doc Scratch in the past. She's also the only person good or lucky enough to have survived the experience. She later lost an arm in an explosion he was supposedly behind. They never pinned it on him, but she's had it out for him even worse ever since. She's the kind of person who _does_ mess with the Felt - and she'd seen an opportunity to finally beat the Doc himself.

The target, of course, was his precious Emerald Heart - as she put it, the only heart he truly has.

Ordinarily you'd never get near the thing. He keeps it in his private collection and that place is serious business. Not a hope in hell of cracking that kind of security. But when Mindfang came to us, it was because she knew the Heart was going to be on loan to a local museum, just for a couple weeks, as part of Scratch's latest pathetic attempt to not look like a bad guy. Nobody was buying it, but the museum wasn't about to say no; they'd get some revenue from people coming to see the Heart anyway. Security there was good, but it was nothing like Scratch's gallery in the Felt Mansion. You could crack the place, if you had a good enough crew.

Now, you might be thinking that Mindfang could've just done that herself. But Scratch knows who she is, big time, and you can bet he'd have some of his people keeping an eye out for her around the museum. She couldn't get close enough to do any of her own recon. Besides that, she'd been out of the area for a while to let things cool off after her last shot at the Felt. She needed good contacts, and she didn't have the time to dig them up herself. Porrim and I? We were her best shot. Well connected, but unknown faces.

When she told us how much money was in it, we knew we had to give it a shot.

The next day we set out in search of the right people for the job. First on my list was how to deal with the gem if we managed to get it. If you wanna sell a stolen gem - or a stolen anything, frankly - the person you go to, if you're me and therefore smart, is a fence by the name of Meenah Peixes. Meenah always wants a slice of the action, as big as she can get away with. We've known each other a lotta years now. First time we met she damn near choked me out; she had...anger issues back then. Anyways, she was the first person I talked to. When I told her the game she laughed for five straight minutes, then said "okay, tell me when the show's on and I'll dredge you up a buyer". Giving the Felt a good poke in the eye was always on her to-do list.

Then we needed somebody to help us get in, and the lady Porrim found for us was Ancestor Leijon. Best second-story artist planetside, if you listened to the word on the street, and always on the lookout for a challenge. We didn't know too much about her save that she'd suddenly got kids to feed since the Families and Cohorts Act, but we needed a specialist for the job and she's a sweet lady when you get to know her. If she lets you get to know her. But that's a whole lot of other heartwrenching stories about helping a friend go straight and still feed her family that we're not gonna get into tonight, lest everybody at this table, myself included, get a bad case of shitty-society rage and start saying words at least four ears ought not to hear.

**== > Terezi and Aradia: Point out how ridiculous this is.**

PL34SE >:P  
W3 GO TO SCHOOL W1TH K4RK4T "FUCK YOU 4LL 1N 3V3RY PUTR1D OR1F1C3" V4NT4S!  
and my cousin is even worse!

**== > Roxy: Concede and continue.**

That is a very good point. About that cousin, though: Damara Megido was the "insurance" I found for us. She is and was a former gang enforcer. Possibly the most dangerous woman I've ever met; definitely the most violent. Used to be on Scratch's payroll, eventually switched sides after some stuff she doesn't talk about, ran with Snowman and the Midnight Crew for a few years after that. By now she had plans to the tune of getting out, retiring to Prospit with her boyfriend before she got too old to shoot straight, but she needed the money to make that happen. Besides that, she wanted one last shot at the Felt. I don't think anybody at this table could blame her.

With our fence, our catburglar, our asskicker and our mastermind all on board, it was time for Porrim and I to get down to the research. The clock was ticking. We only had a fortnight to make and execute a solid plan before the Emerald Heart went right back into the Doc's personal Fort Knox.

But when what you need is information, a con artist is the person to send in.

Of the two of us, Porrim was usually the face of the operation. She has more different coloured contacts and horn adjustment prosthetics than you'd believe - always just a few subtle things to keep her identity in question - and that first day she was playing a security consultant, there to check the place out to see if the gem was being held securely enough that nobody would get on the Doc's bad side. I'd be her backup, let her do most of the talking and only jump in on the technical stuff to ask the questions she didn't know how to. I'm what you'd call the fixer: I get us what we need to look legit, and this job was just the same. Fake credentials, forged ID cards, all that good stuff. On top of that, Ancestor Leijon and I gave Porrim a quick refresher course in the jargon she'd need to know, enough to keep up with me and whoever we ended up chatting with.

It worked like a dream. Poor folks at the museum were nervous as cats and all too happy to have us go over their setup with a fine tooth comb. I'll skip over the technical details we got into, but I'll give them this: they'd done their homework. Place was tough. Not impossible to crack, but tough nonetheless. We had our work cut out for us. On top of that, despite getting all the specs we needed for the gallery where the gem was being held we couldn't ask too much about the rest of the museum without blowing our cover. We left still with some missing pieces.

The only way to get those missing pieces was to go in under a different cover. This time, later the same day, I went in alone - Porrim has a way of drawing eyes that would work against us, but I shook my hair out of its slick businesslady style, put on a pair of jeans and a kitty shirt, unstraightened my shoulders, relaxed my walk and suddenly I was a whole different person. It's a great gift to a grifter, being able to just disappear.

So back into the museum I went, just Jenny Everygirl off the street with a passion for art and history. I paid my fee, I bought a little guidebook, and I took myself up to the gallery where the Emerald Heart was on display.

And there, giving a tour, working a respectable day-job that covered whatever bills she didn't make up through professional gaming, was a girl called Latula.

This is not the end of the story. The way you get from casing a lady's workplace to eventually dating her is long and winding, full of pitfalls and misunderstandings and awkwardly coming clean about how dirty you've been. And anyways, you wanted a story about justice.

I hope that by the end of it all you'll think there's some justice here to be found.

**== > FLASHBACK #1**

There are parts of your story you won't tell. This is one of them: the moment you lay eyes on that sweet girl, you're hooked. You're hungry for her smile and the way it lights up her face. She could say "jump" and you'd say "how high". Just another mark with dollar signs in your eyes, about to fall into the grifter's trap.

You read her name off her badge - Latula - and step into her tour group in lieu of her arms.

As they disperse, you catch her eye and give her a smile back. She does this fussy little thing with her hair, like she's nervous about being honestly smiled at, and you press her for details on the exhibits to give her a bit of breathing room. If her job isn't her passion she does a great impression of it, but you catch a gamer's term in her conversation and let your excitement shine through as you ask her if she plays console or PC. Both, she says, and arcade and tabletop when she gets the chance.

You've almost stopped thinking about how she's a potential source of information, and when you remember what you're there for it's all you can do to keep yourself from visibly deflating. This girl is just part of the job. If she knew who you were - who you really were - she'd run a goddamn mile.

Reluctantly, you steer the conversation back to the Emerald Heart. One dorky Sonic the Hedgehog reference does the trick, along with the bittersweet side effect of making her laugh, and though you don't learn much that's new you do learn more about her.

"Honestly," she says, "it's hard to see the Heart in any kind of gallery. These days there are a lot of seriously important scientific projects that could use a gem like that, alchemiters and appearifiers and high-performance mining lasers and all kinds of rad stuff that make life easier for tons of people. As a component in the kind of tech that changes lives, it'd really be worth something. Trapped in here? It's just a shiny rock. And you would not believe the kind of security upgrades we had to do to make sure it stays that way." She glances both ways and lowers her voice again. "My mom would straight up hang me if she heard me say this, but...I kinda wish somebody _would_ steal it. That way it might have a fighting chance."

That's it. Game over. Stick a fork in you, because you're done.

"Say," you hear yourself asking her, "when do you get off work?"

**== > END FLASHBACK**

I got talking with her, and we connected well enough that I thought she might open up to me. After she got off work we went to the arcade, played games, goofed off. It'd been a while since I'd done that. I knew I was in trouble - I was starting to really like this girl, which I couldn't afford to do - but I told myself no, I'll stick around, maybe she can tell me something the maps can't.

Naturally I was lying to myself, but what can I say? I've always been kind of a sucker for good girls. Porrim and I had a...well, not really a fight. We had a discussion about it that night. She warned me off, and I did my best to listen.

Didn't do a bit of good in the end.

**== > FLASHBACK #2**

This is the part of the story where Porrim is smarter than you. That part comes around in just about every story, and it's usually the part where you let your feelings run away with you.

Right now you've just told the crew about this girl, and how you were at the arcade with her all evening, and you think you can get somewhere on her inside knowledge without having to make the guards jumpy by poking around in person. Most of them are buying it.

Porrim knows you too well for that.

Meenah's already left, having only dropped in to check up on her potential profits. Leijon is going over the alarm schematics with Mindfang, who's taken off her eyepatch to let that creepy left eye of hers do its thing, and Damara is prowling the streets outside, no doubt looking for some trouble to keep her mind quiet while she waits. You haven't talked with her much, but you know she's tired. You've seen that look in her eye before.

You and Porrim are on the balcony of your current address - a decently upmarket hotel room, under your assumed name but on Mindfang's nickel - and she's about to tell you something you know, but really don't want to hear.

"Okay. Roxy. Babe. Rule number one?"

You squeeze your eyes shut. "Do not fall for the mark, I _know_. But she's not even a _mark_ , she's just...some sweet girl who believes in justice and good shit like that and - "

"And _you_ ," says Porrim, poking your sternum gently, "are a no-good grifter who is going to rob her workplace."

"...I know." You turn to lean on the rail. "I just...she was talking about how science programs could totally use that gem for mining or getting food to colonies or any _number_ of great things and _she said she wanted it to get stolen_ , Porrim." You give your partner a desperate look. "She said she _wanted_ somebody to up and steal the damn thing so it could be _out there_ and have a _chance_ of maybe - "

"Roxy _stop_." Porrim rests a hand on your back and sighs. "Look. Normal people _say_ those things. When the chips are down, they do not actually _mean_ them."

You hang your head. "...yeah, I know that too. I just...ugh. Why does she have to exist and be perfect? And I mean that in the totally-not-perfect-and-thus-perfect way."

Porrim slides her arm around you. "I wonder that about you all the time."

As she leans in to kiss your temple, you turn and kiss her mouth instead.

**== > END FLASHBACK**

Beginning of day two, and Mindfang was starting to get antsy. She liked her plan, but she didn't love it. There was still something missing. Leijon had figured out the alarms, but she was worried about how we were gonna reroute the CCTV cameras - you need to do that so you can play a loop of footage to the security station, effectively stopping the guards from seeing you on camera while you're on the premises. Damara was impatient to go ahead with the job - she wanted to go now, she wanted to go _yesterday_ , and knowing even a fraction of what the Doc put her through nobody could blame her, but we needed more time to get everything straight. So she was pissed and spoiling for a fight, on the point of getting into it with Meenah (those two couldn't stand each other, and not in the black way), Mindfang and Leijon were both wound up and in need of inspiration, Porrim and I were nowhere further on the recon...it wasn't a fun party.

By mutual agreement, largely guided by Porrim, we parted ways until the evening. I agreed to get dinner for us, and we could all come back together and eat and talk over the plan once we'd taken the day to let everything settle.

I just wandered where my feet wanted to take me, and ended up back at the museum just in time to catch Latula leaving the morning shift. We got lunch, we talked, I told her a few safe details so I didn't have to lie to her...it would have been a lot nicer if I could've just been honest with her, but it didn't seem to put her off. If anything, my evasiveness was encouraging her.

At the time I knew I shouldn't have made the call. It was a risk, maybe too big of a risk. But I also knew I wasn't going to get anywhere with her on my own, and I've seen Porrim sweet-talk information out of all kinds of people over the years. So I called her, and I asked her was her place clean (which was code for "have we got anything incriminating lying about the hotel room"), because I had somebody I wanted her to meet.

Long story short, I introduced the two of them, we all stood on the balcony and enjoyed the view for a while over drinks, and Tula - she insisted I could shorten her name if I wanted to, because I already felt like more of a friend to her than any of the folks at work (ouch) - Tula finally said something we might be able to use. Apparently she'd gotten lost on her first day at work and ended up in the corridor that leads to the generator room. Now we had access to the basic building schematics, but nothing that would tell us exactly where an on-site generator was; the place was old as balls and they'd refurbished it basically a hundred times since the plans were first laid out. If she knew where to find the generator, she might be able to tell us how we could get to it after hours in order to shut it down. It looked like my deception, much as I hated to be in the middle of one with Tula of all people, was going swimmingly.

What I hadn't counted on was that Porrim was starting to have the same problem as me - and what I _really_ hadn't counted on was Tula leaving her keys behind...

**== > FLASHBACK #3**

You step out on to the balcony, leaving the rest of the group to wrangle with the CCTV schematics. Porrim is looking out at the purple and white lights of the Midnight, a touch of class amidst the razzle-dazzle of the Derse strip. You lean on the rail next to her. "You think we can draw her out on that corridor she mentioned?"

No answer.

"...Porrim?"

When she turns to you, the look in her eyes tells you that this is the part of the story - and this part shows up in every story too - where Porrim suddenly _stops_ being smarter than you.

"Oh sweet bouncing Buddha on a bike... Porrim _no_. Stop. You're supposed to be _sensible_ for me, not jump on the hot-girl bandwagon!"

Far from rising to your scolding, Porrim sighs wearily and looks back out at the city. "...I kept thinking about why we're doing this. Why _I'm_ doing this. About my sister, and my mother - and trust me, I mean those words a lot more than most trolls do. ...And, to be perfectly honest..." She gives you a rueful look. "...if thinking about my mother isn't an instant cold shower, I'm already fucking doomed."

You puff out a breath and rub your forehead with your palm. "...Maybe if we just...get what we need, and she never finds out it was..." You can't even finish that sentence for how awful it sounds. "Shit. This is why we gotta get outta this game, Porrim. I want us to be able to date _nice girls_."

"Yeah, me too, babe. Me too." She moves up beside you and drapes an arm around your waist. "Hey. We hit it big with this one? We can go straight. I'll have enough I can get Mama and Kanaya planetside, get them set up... I won't need the game any more."

You're staring at the lights yourself. How bright they still are, even now you know what they conceal. "So let's do it."

"Yeah. No more thievery, no more grifting...just you and me, living whatever life we wanna start for ourselves."

You lean into her side. "I might go back to school."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I gotta get that degree if I wanna get in with what Mom's doing out on the carapacian colonies. Give something back." You look up at her, and for a second or two you're too busy remembering how breathtaking she is to say anything more. This happens to you from time to time, when the lighting is right. "...What about you?"

"I'm happy without a plan for now." She smiles wearily. "I just wanna get through this job without anything going tits-up."

"Word to that - " The sound of footsteps makes you straighten up. "...You hear somebody in the hall?"

Porrim grins. "Relax, babe, you locked the door."

A heavy pause. She turns to look at you, her grin slowly fading.

"...You...did lock the door, right?"

You're beginning to feel like you've just swallowed a small iceberg. "...Meenah propped it open for the air. _Fuck_ \- "

You don't need to say any more. The moment you start running, Porrim's with you. You burst back into the main room one after the other, and you almost fall over the couch trying to get to the door -

"Hey you girlz, did I leave my...whoa. Oh-kay."

Too late: for there is Tula, sweet, innocent Tula, standing in the doorway, looking at a crew in the midst of planning the heist of the century. It's a good thing Damara is near both Mindfang and Leijon, because it takes both of them to stop her from pouncing on the poor girl. You stumble the rest of the way to the door, Porrim close behind you, in a last-ditch attempt to somehow make this right.

Tula takes a step back.

You think that iceberg you swallowed might be about to sink something important.

"...Something you girlz maybe wanna tell me right about now?" says Tula, trying to sound decisive despite a tremor in her voice that makes you _hurt_. "Because that sure looks like a map of the museum, and that sure looks like one of our security systems."

You squeeze your eyes shut for a moment. This is pretty much the _exact opposite_ of the thing that you wanted. "...Yeah. Yeah, we should...uh... Look, do you wanna come in and sit down?"

She grips the doorframe. "No, I think I'm gonna stay here where I can see y'all, thanks. Prefer to be close to the exit, yanno?"

You back off a little, feeling like the worst kind of scum in existence. "Okay, that's...that's fair. Um. Well..." Shit, there's absolutely _nothing_ you can say, is there? "...basically, yeah, this is exactly what it looks like."

Surprisingly, she's still relatively calm - on the surface, at least. Perhaps it's just you, but her hands might be shaking a little. "...Okay. So you're...what, professional thieves?"

"No, not all of us." Porrim's talking now, thank goddess; at least her voice is soothing. "This is largely a break from the norm."

Tula nods shakily. You ache to hold her. "To go after one of the exhibits."

"Not just any exhibit."

That was Mindfang, smug as ever, from somewhere behind you. Of course she'd take the opportunity to show off. She's the _de facto_ leader, though, so you take it as tacit permission to give Tula the truth. "We're after the Emerald Heart."

 _Now_ she looks shocked. "...Fuck me. You're really gonna..." Her gaze darts about the room. "...you're serious? You're actually gonna steal the centerpiece of Doc Scratch's private collection...and get away clean?"

"That's the plan, babe."

Porrim has her hand on your back now. Bolstered, you press on. Nowhere left to go but up. "We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't think - no. We would not be this far into doing this thing if we did not _know_ we can do it."

For a moment, everything's quiet. Tula is looking from you to Porrim to the rest of the crew and back again.

And then, quite suddenly, she says, "Okay, I'll help."

Meenah is the first one to react. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Wow. You didn't expect Tula to shoot back at someone like Meenah _ever_ , never mind in her current state. "I can help you girlz out. I know the ins and outs of the place, how everything works... You could use that kinda info, right?"

Everything about this makes you uncomfortable for reasons you can't quite articulate. "Well, yeah, but..."

"But what?" She's rounding on you now, and you're not sure if she's genuinely angry or just hysterical. "You thought I wasn't serious when I said I wished to goddess somebody would up and steal that fuckin' thing? Besides, it's that or you gotta, idk, kill me or...or something, or..." Finally, the reality of her situation starts to sink in. She points a shaking finger at Damara, who, having been firmly called off, is glaring balefully at the rest of the crew from the corner of the room. "...shit, she was gonna straight up kill me, wasn't she?" Then, into the uncomfortable silence, "Who the fuck _are_ you people?"

Porrim steps around you and holds a hand out to her. "Easy, babe. Take it easy. Breathe."

Tula shakes her head and waves her off. "I'm okay. I'm okay. Lemme in, lemme in. Shit. I gotta...take my meds..."

She stumbles. You catch her. This time, thank goddess, she doesn't pull away. Porrim touches her shoulder briefly. "Do you need water?"

"Yeah, thanks, that'd be sweet..."

You guide her over to the couch where Leijon is sitting. The ancestor is wearing an expression of what, on a human, you'd probably call maternal concern, and when Tula is close enough she helps her sit down. Meenah is sprawled in one of the nearby armchairs, and Mindfang has moved to take up the other. Tula seems to take them in as a sort of conglomerate, which is probably easier to deal with than the reality of being in the same room as several potentially dangerous criminals. "Could you...could you girlz just talk to me or something? Muscle spasms are hurting p bad right now and I just need to get through it. Please."

Leijon smooths Tula's hair. "Is there anything in purrticular you'd like to talk about?"

Tula barely seems to notice. "Anything. For realz, anything. Tell me how you got into the business, tell me what your favourite foods are, tell me if any of you ever played D&D and did something real stupid - I just need to not be alone in my head right now, you know?"

"I know."

That's the last voice you expected to hear. Damara's coming over to the couch, looking at Tula with that dead-eyed expression she wears sometimes when she thinks too much. Porrim's back with the glass of water; Damara takes it from her on the way. She kneels in front of Tula and pushes the glass into her hands. "Take pills," she says. "We talk. Everybody talk. You - " She's pointing at you. " - talk first." She gives you a mirthless smile. "You got some 'splainin' to do."

And so, after a few moments of shocked silence, you start to 'splain.

**== > END FLASHBACK**

We all met up again that night at the hotel room to eat that dinner I'd promised (which was a frankly obscene amount of bugs and pizza) and try to hammer out some more details of the plan. If Meenah hadn't propped the door open for some air about twenty minutes in, it would all have gone very differently. As it was, you can imagine the scene poor Tula walked in on when she came to get her keys back. I wouldn't have kept as cool as she did under the circumstances. Hell, Mindfang and Leijon had to stop Damara from tackling her to the goddamn floor.

If I'd been her, I'd probably have tried to run for the cops then and there. I'd have gotten my ass killed, or at least badly beaten. But Tula...she was smart, she knew what was going on, and she'd never felt right about Scratch or his Emerald Heart. She wasn't going to rat us out.

Then again, she wasn't going to throw her lot in with a bunch of criminals too easy either.

That was how we all ended up sitting on and around the corner couch, telling this nice, normal girl our stories and why we did the things we did.

I told her about my mom, how she'd poured everything she had into getting the carapacian colonies online, how some fat cat bankers had screwed her over and left her with next to nothing to live on but she kept working anyway. I told her about how I'd tried to get a job, been turned down left and right, and finally fallen into the con game - first to get enough to survive, then to get my family back on their feet, and now to help make sure my mom's work continued. I told her about how I chose my marks, and she listened.

Then Porrim told her about her family, her mom and her sister, two jadebloods up on the space stations, never able to walk in the sunlight, and how she almost had enough to bring them planetside. Next, Ancestor Leijon told her about her two descendants; one of them lost her hearing in an accident during the last days of the rebellion, and with the Families and Cohorts Act she wasn't allowed to let the other take care of herself like a little troll can. They told her, and she listened.

Meenah didn't make much of a case for herself - she always wants a slice of the action, and our heist was the biggest action in town. What she did do was tell Tula how Doc Scratch treats anyone who crosses his path, especially trolls, and you could tell Tula was listening to that too. You could tell it made her angry.

Damara's story was the shortest of all. "He hurt me," she said, "real bad." Then she drew her thumb across her throat and said, "Payback time."

After what Meenah had said, that was enough.

Last of all there was Mindfang, and Mindfang told her all about the first time she'd tried to steal from Doc Scratch. She told her about what she'd seen in that place, and how Doc Scratch treats his own people. How his favourites can do whatever they want to anyone he cares less about. What he does to those he cares most about. The way Damara was staring into space, none of us needed to question whether Mindfang's story was true. She told Tula she'd brought us all together not for the money, not for the glory, but to do something that had never been done before.

She wanted to show Doc Scratch he could be _beaten_.

That, I think, was the moment Tula decided she wanted to join us. She'd hated Scratch already; now she hated him as much as any of us, and what she hated most was his greed. "The Emerald Heart could _mean_ something," she said, "somewhere else, for someone else. It could be in the middle of some gizmo that could turn people's lives around. It's perfect enough you could use it as is, no preparation. But this guy? It's just an avatar for his ego. Hell, it could be made of _glass_ for all he'd care so long as people looked at it and thought, damn, this guy must have a fourteen-inch... What? Wha'd I say?"

And then we were all following Tula's stare, looking at Mindfang.

"My dears," said that old rogue, her grin starting up with all the fangs in it, "I do believe the game has changed..."

So there it was, the breakthrough we'd been waiting for: instead of stealing the gem and covering our tracks so Scratch wouldn't know who to come after, we'd steal the gem and later replace it, somehow, with a fake. Not quite so public a kick in the ass, but we'd walk away with our lives. It'd be sweet if we could've just replaced the thing on the spot, but without the real gem we wouldn't be able to make a replica convincing enough for even a cursory exam. Doc Scratch wouldn't buy it for a second.

After that we couldn't just let Tula sit on the sidelines. She wasn't an experienced con like the rest of us, but she was smart and she was invested. She wanted that gem out of Scratch's hands as badly as any of us - for just and heroic reasons, sure, but if she was willing to help us out we weren't going to turn her down.

Her inside knowledge gave us a few more missing pieces of the plan, too. Top of the list was the security cameras Leijon had been worried about: they ran off that on-site generator Tula had mentioned to Porrim and me earlier on, so causing a local powercut wouldn't touch them, and we needed to knock them out long enough to reroute them. That way all the security guards would see would be our loop of recorded footage, and we could get a live feed of what was really going on sent straight to a tablet. When Tula ended up in the generator corridor that first day at work, she'd noticed two things: first, that one of the doors she opened led to a janitor's closet, and second, that there were no security cameras there. There's one tracking anyone who goes into the corridor, but once you're there behind the scenes? Nothing. If we could smuggle somebody into the janitor's closet before the museum closed, they'd be able to make their way into the generator room without being seen and shut the thing off. The backup generator only takes about thirty seconds to warm up and kick in, so the timing would have to be goddamn stellar, but I knew I could do it. I'd done worse.

Next problem was the motion sensors in the gallery. Those run off the generator as well, so again we'd have in the ballpark of thirty seconds to shut most of them down so whoever was on the ground could move. It's too far from the generator room to the gallery, so we'd need to either hide somebody in the gallery - tricky - or fly them down from the skylight, and fast. That looked like our best hope. Mindfang's a genius with a rope and Leijon had a ton of experience.

As far as getting the gem out of its case, Tula confirmed for us there was only one way of doing that: you'd need to pick the locks. The keys were locked away and nobody on-site had access to the lockbox; the curator took the master key away with her when she left at the end of the day. They weren't complex locks, though. Most of the night-time security work in the galleries was done by the motion sensors and cameras - the keys were just to stop people from opening the cases during the day, as much to protect the displays from damage as theft. I could probably have cracked them open myself; to a thief like Leijon, we knew they'd be child's play.

Once we were done, we'd need a way to escape. Fortunately for us, the building next door to the museum belonged to Snowman: she was planning a big party in a few nights' time for two of the guys' ten-year anniversary, and Damara could get us in the back way to mingle with the guests and effectively drop off the map. She'd earned a few favours from Snowman during her time with the Midnight Crew, and this was the best way she could help us out on the heist while still not missing the party. If we needed any serious backup, she'd be less than a hundred yards away from the museum - along with not just Snowman and the Midnight Crew, but every dangerous friend they've ever made. The perfect insurance in case Scratch caught up with us.

With the date for the heist set and the plan finally coming together, Porrim and I walked Tula back to her flat. Having everything out was a weight off our shoulders, and Tula seemed to feel the same way about getting the Heart away from Scratch. I hadn't realised how much it was bothering her until then. Too caught up in my own problems, I guess.

Two days later, and everything was going pretty well. With Tula on board and all the information we needed, it sure looked like we were on the way to a clean job. Unfortunately, when the crew met up to rehearse the final details of that first stage - getting somebody into the janitor's closet - we hit a major snag. The best way to do it would be to have Tula deliver a handcart of cleaning supplies to the closet towards the end of the day, with whoever was going to shut off the generator hiding inside. That way Mindfang could lower Leijon into the top floor gallery through the skylight while I was rerouting the security footage.

The problem?

Turned out I was the only one who would fit in the handcart.

This was a huge spanner in the works. There was no way I'd be able to shut off the generator, get to where I needed to be, reroute the footage and be done before the backup generator kicked in. Leijon couldn't do it either, because we needed her to shut off the alarms in the gallery, and Mindfang was the only one who could do the anchor half of the ropework.

As it turned out, though, there was one other person in the party who knew enough - just enough - about electronics...

**== > Roxy: Watch that one sink in.**

Redglare sets down her piece of wiggler-friendly grubcake. Her expression is half way between incredulity and pure murder. "Daughter of _mine_."

"Hey. No." Holy shit, Tula is standing her ground. Again. Maybe you ought to stop being so surprised when your girlfriend turns out to be a mighty daughter of dragons after all. "You said we had an amnesty for anything Scratch-related." She jabs a finger at Redglare, something you'd probably _still_ get banished to your room for doing with your own mother, and switches to Alternian. //We had an accord, so don't start up with your Where Are Your Stay Of Execution Papers face.//

Redglare simmers quietly. You're beginning to appreciate just how much negotiation it must have taken to get you and Porrim through the front door. You're also pretty glad the party has moved into the living room, because if you do end up getting tossed into the fixtures most of them in this room are pretty soft.

After a few moments, Redglare sighs. You expect to see actual steam come out through her nostrils, but no, it turns out she's just a troll. "...I hope you paid for the property damage."

"I _paid_ for the _property damage_ by being overworked and underpaid for two straight years, okay?" says Tula, slumping back in her armchair and starting to grin. She must've read something in Redglare's face that you can't. "Wouldja let the lady tell her story?"

"Fine, fine," says Redglare, almost airily, "settle down..." She gives you an imperious little shooing gesture, very much like one you saw Terezi use earlier. "Carry on, little miscreant; carry on..."

**== > Roxy: Do as the lady says.**

We had just enough time before the heist for Leijon and me to give Tula a crash course in rerouting the CCTV. Meenah, bless all her little fins, managed to find us an approximate model of the wiring on short notice, and by the time we all set out that afternoon Tula could do her thing in...almost under thirty seconds.

It'd have to be enough.

As planned, I hid in that tiny little handcart, packed in among the cleaning supplies, until she'd safely delivered me to the janitor's closet. Just to be absolutely sure I wasn't found before time, she'd managed to take an impression of the closet key so that I could cut a copy for myself before we left. Then all she had to do was make sure the original key was in that little safe box, the one the curator locked up and took away the master key for every evening. Nobody could just wander in on me, nobody would be along with another key until the cleaners came by with their copy at stupid o'clock in the morning, and I could let myself out any time I wanted.

Then all I had to do was wait, in a dark, damp closet that reeked of bleach and floor polish, until half past eleven.

Not _quite_ the longest wait of my life, but it felt pretty close.

At eleven twenty-seven, I put on my headset and tested the earbud. Sound was crisp as a winter's morn. Beautiful. Hopefully the mic wouldn't let me down.

"Blackout, check in," I murmured.

For several moments there was nothing. Then, thank goddess, I heard Porrim's voice. "Virgo, check in."

"Leo, check in." There was Leijon.

"Scorpio, check in." Mindfang.

Just one to go. I waited, my heart in my mouth.

Then...

"-f all the stupid - Dear god, I hate this fucking headset..."

I almost burst out laughing. "Hey, Libra. You good?"

"Yeah, it'll have to do. I swear, I should've brought my own..."

"Scorpio. Cut the chatter, ladies." Mindfang, all business for perhaps the first time since I'd met her. "Where are we?"

"Virgo. Eyes ready for overwatch." That meant Porrim's tablet was working and ready to receive a signal.

"Leo. In purrsition."

"Libra. In position." Good, she was back on the script now. "Eyes on the objective, ready to go on your mark, Blackout."

I wondered for a second which FPS game taught her to talk that way, then decided that All Of Them was probably a good answer. "Blackout. Okay, moving now. Begin radio silence."

I put my key in the lock, turned it until it clicked...and slowly eased the door open. It didn't so much as _hiss_. Because I'm me, and I'm smart, I'd spent some of that long wait greasing the hinges.

The corridor outside was deserted. I slipped down it as quickly and quietly as I could, took out my lockpicks and started on the generator room door. This key Tula hadn't been able to get me a copy of, but the lock didn't put up too much of a fight. It was a safety lock, not a security one; you wanna keep the general public out of your generator room so they don't do anything stupid, but if there's an emergency you need to be able to get in there quickly to shut everything down without the lock posing too much of an obstacle. I'd been banking on that.

Once I was inside, the generator was a little intimidating but nothing I hadn't seen at least a couple of times before. I knew how to shut it down. "Blackout. In position. Last checks, respond when ready."

"Scorpio."

"Virgo."

"Leo."

"Libra."

This was it.

Game on.

"Blackout. Commencing namesake on my mark. Three, two, one - _mark_."

I threw the master switch.

Everything went black.

"Blackout. We are dark. Keep it cool, ladies - " That was mostly for Tula, but Leijon told me later it made her smile. " - you're the best there is. We can do this."

For all my fancy words, those thirty seconds were so tense I could hardly breathe. Towards the end I heard Tula cursing softly under her breath. Was she gonna make it? She was the lynchpin; without her, we were screwed.

But when the backup generator thrummed into life, I heard Porrim say, "Virgo. Lights are on."

That meant she'd done it.

**== > FLASHBACK #4**

"Virgo. Lights are on. Three on the move, looking confused, probably trying to decide whether or not to check the power. Where are we?"

"Leo. Beams are down. Hitting the locks now."

You almost collapse against the wall with relief. "Blackout. Auxiliary's running. Switching to main and de-assifying the area. Anybody nearby?"

"Virgo. You're clear. Go."

As you switch the main generator back on and slip back out into the corridor, you hear Mindfang's voice. "Scorpio. So far so good. Libra, do you read?"

"I-I'm here." She doesn't sound too good. "I did it. I actually... Fuck, I'm shaking, where do I - where's the key? How do I get out? I gotta get - "

Shit, Mindfang got her in through the window on the way up to the roof. She's behind a locked door. How did you not realise that would freak her the fuck out? "Stay put, stay quiet, keep breathing. I'm coming for you. Virgo, point me."

"Take a right in the main hall. Door on the right in the corner leads up the maintenance staircase. Move fast; you've got three on their way."

You don't need telling twice. You're through that door and up the maintenance staircase to the top floor faster than you've ever run anywhere. "Blackout, I'm on the top floor. Just like we planned, Libra. I'm right here. Can you give the door a little tap so I know for sure?"

 _Tap tap._ It's the one you're in front of. "I can hear you outside - "

"Great. Turn off your mic for me. I'll be right in to get you."

You switch off your own mic and set to work on the lock. It's a tougher one than the generator room, but if they really don't want people messing with the CCTV they should do a better job bolting the window. Old buildings, right?

Within a minute or so the lock clicks tellingly. You press the handle down, and almost at once you're face to face with Tula. There are tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. "Roxy - "

You step in. "I gotcha."

She all but falls into your arms. You hold her for a few moments, savouring the warmth and the relief. As you pull back, you kiss a tear from her cheek. She kisses you then, firmly, impulsively, and pulls you back into the embrace.

"Virgo. Blackout, Libra, you two lovebirds okay?"

Tula barely stifles a laugh. You switch the mic back on long enough to check in - "Blackout. Safe and sound. On our way for extraction." - and then run your hands over her hair. She's still shaking a little, but she's holding together, and goddess you have no right to be proud of her but you _are_. You're so proud you could fucking burst. You give her your most encouraging smile. "Wanna see something totally rad?"

She takes a deep breath and nods, managing a smile of her own. "Always."

That's all you need. You untangle yourself from her and take her hand. "C'mon. Stick close by me."

And you lead her back out into the dark. Porrim's voice in your ear, soft and soothing, guides you safely to the gallery.

**== > END FLASHBACK**

After I switched the main generator back on - one less clue for the guards that there was anyone else in the building - I got Tula out of the back room she'd been in. Together we headed into the gallery, quiet as mice, to watch Leijon work. She needed a moment to get her shit together once the case was open. Honestly, I couldn't blame her one bit. That gem may just have been a shiny rock right then, but it was a really, _really_ shiny rock. I took some pictures of her holding it, all in her mask and gloves, dangling from Mindfang's rope like it weren't no thing. You only get to see that shit once in a lifetime, lemme tell you, and I wasn't going to walk away without immortalising it.

Everything was still quiet on the CCTV when we got done with our minute or two of premature celebration, so we got started on the extraction with cool heads and a ton of optimism. Leijon had plans to go right back up the rope, which for her was no problem, but I'm not the world's greatest climber and poor Tula had never had the chance to try. Mindfang planned on hauling us both up, giving us a good sturdy knot of rope to stand on and just pulling us up through the skylight like we were on a cargo crane. Sounded like fun. By now Tula had chilled out enough that she wanted first go, and Mindfang was on board for getting the rookie out asap, so once Leijon had climbed back up the rope - I swear, fastest climb I've ever seen - we put Tula on and started hauling her up.

When she was half way to the skylight, Porrim lost three of the cameras.

**== > FLASHBACK #5**

"Virgo. Nineteen through twenty-one just went dark."

Tula's faint _fuck me, that's the gallery_ tells you everything you need to know. There is a creek, and you are up it, and you are short on paddles, and god fucking dammit you think you see that iceberg again. "Blackout. Scorpio, get her the fuck outta here."

"Virgo. Two on the move, headed your way. They're not running, so they don't have visual, but they know something's up." She sighs. It's shaky. Fuck. "Connection must've fried."

That means Tula is about to start blaming herself.

Double fuck.

"Scorpio. Leo, take the line and go. Virgo, wait at the exit point. You're taking Libra with you. Once she's clear I'll bring up the rope."

Tula panics. "No! You can't leave her behind!"

Fuck with a cherry on top, she's almost loud enough to hear outside the gallery... You take a deep breath. The last thing you want is for her to lose her shit while she's fifteen feet up in the air and fall. "Blackout. I got this. Libra, I need you to be cool right now. Can you tell me how you'd get out of here if the place was on fire?"

A pause. A shaky breath. "...Fire escape on this floor leads to the roof. Out of the gallery, turn right, down to the end, first door on the left. Marked. Never locked if you're inside, just a pushbar - shit, it's alarmed - "

Goddess bless this perfect little tour guide. "Doesn't matter, it's perfect. Go. Go now. I'll be right behind you."

Just as Mindfang pulls Tula up through the skylight, you dive out of the gallery, turn right and make a break for the fire exit.

"Scorpio. All hands, radio silence. Repeat, all hands, radio silence. We are going dark. Godspeed, ladies."

You're not running quietly any more. You're running _flat out_. The guards heading for the gallery aren't as close behind you as you'd feared - that or you're faster than you thought - because you don't hear them shouting until your hands are within inches of the emergency exit door, and their protests soon get lost in the shrieking of the fire alarm.

It's cold out on the roof, colder than you were ready for. You cast about for the rest of the team - there, there's Porrim, just taking off on the zip wire, Mindfang standing guard at her side...all the way on the other side of the roof, oh, to hell with your _luck_. You race across the tiles to join them, and before you're even there you hear Mindfang's voice in your ear, barely a whisper:

"Scorpio. Keep running, Blackout. Take what I'm holding and get out. Activate on landing. ...See you on the other side."

You reach her, pass her, taking the small device from her outstretched hand, grab the pulley on the zip line, leap...

...and _fly_...

...right through an open window on the building opposite. The pulley deposits you abruptly in the middle of a queen-size mattress, obviously laid out for the purpose. As soon as you've had a chance to catch your breath, you open your hand, turn the device over (it's shaped like a spider, of _course_ it's shaped like a goddamn spider) and hit the big blue button.

With a _fwish!_ and a _thmp_ , the entire zipline detaches from the museum roof, coils itself up in mid-flight, detaches from the windowledge outside and drops into your lap. The two little grappling hooks on the end are shaped like spiders, too.

"Who does she think she is," you ask yourself aloud, "fucking... _Batman_?"

"Pretty much," says Porrim from beside you, and you let her crush you into a hug. Tula's with her, still shaky but holding together. You give her hand a squeeze. Leijon taps you on the shoulder and flashes you a smile, indicating she's going to get ready.

All away - all except one.

The room you're in is dark. From your vantage point by the window, you can just see Mindfang standing on the edge of the roof, tipping her black hat to the security guards as they close in...

And then she leaps...

...and drops out of sight.

"Flash bastard," Porrim mutters.

Tula huddles in between you. "She's totes not dead, right?"

"Oh yep," you confirm, watching the security guards shine their flashlights impotently over the edge of the building. They won't find her. "No way that old con is going out easy. She'll be along in a few. C'mon - we better get dressed to impress."

Sure enough, just as Porrim is about to take her shirt off Mindfang slips in through the window. "Oh, I do beg your _pardon_ ," she says softly through a rakish grin, and it's so over-the-top you almost don't care that she's hitting on your girlfriend...though that could also have a lot to do with her having saved your butt back there. You probably owe her this at least. Tula stifles giggles. Porrim, on the other hand, gives Mindfang a flat look and a _do you mind?_ that sends her from the room, one flourish of a bow and one wholly unsolicited wink later.

Tula grins, a little nervously. "Should I go too, or..."

Porrim, by now gloriously naked from the waist up, decides that a firm kiss on the lips is answer enough.

Dear goddess, you love this woman.

Actually, you're dangerously close to loving both of them.

**== > END FLASHBACK**

Turned out one of the connections had fried, leaving the guards with nothing but snow on every camera in the gallery. Naturally they came up to check it out, and naturally we had to de-assify the area a little faster than we planned. Mindfang hauled Tula up the rest of the way double time, thanks to that robotic arm, and thank goddess for that girl's mental map of the museum because she directed me straight to a fire escape. We all got off the roof in the nick of time, thanks to Mindfang's flashy zipline gizmo (I swear to god, woman thinks she's fucking _Batman_ ), and we landed as planned inside the building next door. Damara even left us a mattress to splash down on.

Not saying I'd ever rob a museum again, but all the crazy ropework and sneaking around? That was more fun than it had a right to be. I think I finally understood why the bastards do it. Adrenaline junkies, every last one of 'em.

After that, there was nothing left to do but get into the party dresses we'd given Damara to smuggle in for us and head on downstairs to join the celebration. Meenah showed up to join us, too, though she was gone within about an hour. Too much for a fence to do in the late stages of the game. I don't know how long the rest of us stayed precisely, but it was long enough for most of the party to have a few drinks. I was staying off the stuff - that's another long, sad story of redemption for another time - and Tula didn't wanna drink so she could take her meds later without worrying, but the party atmosphere was enough to chill us both out after the heist. We talked, we danced, we took a bunch of photos, we ate those ridiculous little party snacks that always seem like such a good idea at the time - it was perfect. Just what the doctor ordered, provided the doctor's name wasn't Scratch.

It was getting on for early, never mind late, when six of the magnificent seven passed the mailbox on the way to the hotel. Mindfang and Damara were egging on Ancestor Leijon, who was apparently drunk enough to tell stories of her own exploits for once. Porrim had her arm around Tula, telling her she'd done great, and dear goddess did they look a picture together.

As we passed by that mailbox, Tula said, "Are you kidding? I almost ballsed up the whole thing. Major wipeout if you guys hadn't saved my butt."

"That's why you have a crew," I told her, because it's true. Real crews cover for each other. "We couldn't have pulled this off without you. Hell, I couldn't have done what you did tonight when I first started out. You're amazing. And look - we walked away."

And Porrim was all, "Yeah, see? Trust me, sweetie, everything's going to be just fine."

And then the sirens started.

We didn't put up a fight. We just let the cops take us to the station house, nice and calm. They had us in separate holding cells for a bit, but it wasn't long before they seemed to wanna herd us all into this one room all the sudden. I didn't know what was up, and it sure looked like nobody else did - except maybe Tula, who looked...not scared, just...pained. Like she knew what was gonna happen and she knew it was gonna suck.

And then this _ancestor_ walked in, and I recognised the horns before I even took in the rest of her - sharp red suit, shiny red boots, red shades so pointy you could toss them across a room and kill a grown-ass man, big white cane with a dragon's head handle that I just _knew_ had a few feet of sword inside... She was quite possibly the scariest motherfucker I had ever seen in my entire goddamn life.

This was what she said.

"My name is Scarlett Redglare. I'm your legal representation. Yes, all of you. Even you."

That was for Mindfang.

"But let me make one thing absolutely clear..."

Even though she had those shades on, I was over nine thousand percent sure she was looking me straight in the eye.

"If you miserable meatbags are guilty, I'll make sure you don't survive your jail terms."

**== > Story: Sit around on this cliffhanger for a moment.**

"And that," says Porrim with a grin, "is how we met your mother."

Terezi crows and claps her hands. "Ahahahaha! She must have breathed righteous dragon's fire upon you all! Guilty! Ha!"

"Damn sure breathed some fire at me," Tula says with mock reproach, prodding Redglare in the side.

"And deservedly so!" Redglare swats her away. To human eyes it looks vicious, but the grin - that shark-tooth grin - has reached her eyes for the first time all evening. "My own blood! Arrested! The disgrace to our sign! I should've hanged you on the spot." She passes the vape in her hand to Tula and leans back in her chair. 

Tula takes it. "See that? Right there?" She gestures with the end, grinning back. " _That_ is why they won't let you carry a rope any more."

Terezi takes a draw on her own vape - red, of course, with a red cylinder, the harmless morello cherry kind with nothing in it but steam and flavours. Your eye catches on the perfect ring of vapour she breathes out. "So! There you are, six of the mostly magnificent seven, in custody. How do you escape? Is it highly daring and insufferably illegal? Are there ropes and blades awaiting you if ever you return?"

"No and no," says Porrim, crossing one leg over the other in the way that always maddens you, goddamn her. "It was...how can I put this? ...It was already foretold that we would walk free by sunset of the next night."

You look from her self-satisfied smile to Terezi's rapt expression and back again. "Remind me again why you're not telling this story?"

She shrugs elegantly. "Ancestor Pyrope's orders, babe. I'm just here for flavour."

"You are de- _licious_ ," says Terezi with deep sincerity, and you laugh because Tula, bless her sweet ass, is actually bristling a little. To be fair to her, though, you wouldn't find it half as adorable if it were _your_ kid sister borderline hitting on your girlfriend. "I must hear the rest of this story! Speak, human; the court demands it!"

In part to save the situation, you carry on.

**== > Roxy: Be the woman with the perfect alibi.**

So there we all were, and I couldn't think of a damn thing to say. I'd cottoned on by now that the troll I was looking at was Tula's ancestor - can anyone say Worst Meet The Parents Ever? - and I was pretty sure she meant what she was saying about killing us all. This was not part of the plan.

Getting arrested, however, was something we'd planned for.

Let me explain.

One of the things they'd taken from us was the camera Porrim had on her - the one we'd been taking pictures with at the party, remember? They were hoping that on that camera they'd find some sort of evidence from the heist, something they could use to prove that we'd come from the museum, but all they found when they developed the film were photos from Snowman's place. I'll say this for the lady, she knows how to celebrate her people's milestones. It was a great party and there were some _beautiful_ shots on that camera. The cream of the crop was this one picture of all six of us that Meenah had taken: we were standing under a massive grandfather clock, biggest one I'd ever seen, Porrim and Mindfang in the middle, then me and Leijon next to them, and Tula and Damara on the outsides.

But in that picture of the six of us together, at that party, standing around the grandfather clock, was the one thing the cops did not want to see.

The clock said half past eleven.

They went through all the other pictures, desperately looking for something to disprove what they'd found, but they only made it worse. There was another clock in one of the earlier shots that said eleven fifteen. Another, some shots later, said eleven twenty three.

Photographic evidence: at the time the heist took place, none of us were there.

**== > Terezi: OBJ3CT.**

WH44444T  
STOP T3LL1NG L13S TH1S 1NST4NT  
TH3 CRU3L3ST B4R D3M4NDS TH3 TRUTH!

**== > Roxy: Deal with this troll's objection.**

It's all you can do not to chuckle at the look on her face - half indignation, half pure glee. She's like a kid at a magic show: she wants to know how the hell you did it, but she's also enjoying _not_ knowing just so it can be magic for a while. "Remember I mentioned Damara used to run with the Midnight Crew? When she was first starting out with them, one of her jobs was to make sure all the clocks read the same time. Apparently one of the guys, I think it was Slick, used to go nuts if the clocks didn't agree with each other and start smashing them, so Damara had to check them all every night and make sure everything was perfect. Net result? She knows where to find every clock in the goddamn house. Right before the party, she had a word with Snowman and her boys, went around and pushed all of them back by half an hour." You grin. "Just enough time for the perfect alibi."

Aradia beams, delighted that her cousin saved the day. "So they had to let you go!"

"So they had to let us go," Porrim confirms with a smile. "And not a moment too soon."

Tula looks sheepish. "We were getting to the part where we'd've had to admit to having done the thing, which would've been totally bad for everybody."

"And deservedly _so_!" Terezi does an uncanny, if slightly high-pitched, impression of her mother.

"Believe me, sweetie," says Porrim diplomatically, "we were all very grateful that Ancestor Pyrope was magnanimous enough to let us walk away, given we'd just gotten her descendant arrested."

"By her mercy you sit here within reach of my hand," Terezi laughs, reaching in Porrim's general direction (Porrim gives her bony little hand a squeeze, goddess bless her), "instead of being burned to ash by dragon's fire and scattered to the four winds!"

"And by her mercy you still have a big sister," Tula points out, poking Terezi in the ear. "Whose quadrantmate you may now stop hitting on."

Porrim chuckles. Terezi sticks out her tongue. "Blar. She should have hanged you on the _spot_."

Latula scoffs. "Don't kid yourself, shortstack. If she'd had a rope she'd'a hanged Mindfang, not me."

"Oh, I wanted to," says Redglare. One of her hands curls into a fist, clawtips digging into her palm. "That woman's record is about one eighth the length it ought to be. It took all my strength not to lie in wait and hit her with something on the way out, just so she wouldn't have slipped through my fingers _yet again_."

Terezi cackles and sing-songs, "You haaaate her, you want to puuuunch her..."

Redglare's subsequent _I will have order in this courtblock_ is sincere, but lacks bite. Not for the first time it strikes you that for a pseudo-familial unit forced together by frankly draconian laws that suppress their species' natural tendencies, the Pyropes make a goddamn adorable family.

"So when did you switch in the fake?" Aradia's back on track. "Did you have to break into the museum all over again?"

You shake your head. "That would've been the nice way out. No way Scratch was giving us that. By now he knew someone had his gem, and Mindfang was his top suspect."

Aradia nods. "Right, because she tried to steal from him before and got away. He must've come after you the moment you got out."

"Pretty much," you confirm with a grin, "but thanks to Meenah, we were ready for him..."

**== > Roxy: Commence EPIC SCRATCH SHOWDOWN x7 COMBO.**

Doc Scratch didn't get to where he is by being stupid. He knew we couldn't have had the Heart on us when the cops picked us up or they'd've found it. Only other option was that we'd stashed it somewhere. Knowing that, he decided to have us followed until we inevitably went to pick up the gem.

Unfortunately for him, that allowed us to set the playing field.

The place we chose was on the border between Felt and Midnight territory, not far from the museum or the hotel, in the memorial park Scratch himself had commissioned in memory of the Alternian rebellion. No cars, no cops, no cameras...just us and the mark. We'd made him mad enough. No way he was staying in his ivory tower if he could come down and watch even one of us bleed out in person.

Mindfang went ahead in the open. She was the one he wanted; she wasn't going to let anyone else be the bait.

Sure enough, the son of a bitch showed.

"Good evening, Marquise," he said, and levelled his white revolver. He was aiming square between her eyes. "I believe you have something of mine."

Mindfang, naturally, was cool as ice. "Something of yours, Doctor? How very entertaining. You see, _I've_ always believed that possession is seven eighths of the law - and so it would appear, according to the law of averages, that what I in fact have is something of _mine_."

That was our cue. One by one, we stepped out from among the trees. Leijon. Meenah. Porrim. Tula. And finally me.

Tula and Leijon were the only ones not pointing sidearms at him.

"It would also appear," said Mindfang, laying a hand on the hilt of her saber, "that my associates and I have you...rather embarrassingly outnumbered."

Asshole didn't even blink. "Do you now." He cleared his throat softly. "Gentlemen."

Nothing happened. Now he seemed a little thrown off his stride; the second throat clear was a proper _hem-HEM_.

"... _Gentlemen_."

At first, still nothing.

Then, out of the shadows like a ghost...one knife against his throat, another with the point at his back...

"Uh-uh. No gentlemen here. Only you...and little Megido."

Doc Scratch slowly put up his hands. I know he's a greedy, murdering asshole, but at that moment I actually felt a little bad for him. Mindfang? She just looked smug as always; I don't know why _anyone_ would be shocked about this. "Take the gun, please, Ancestor Leijon."

Leijon went up and took it, calm as anything. I saw her give the craftsmanship a once-over on her way back to join us. Mindfang, meanwhile, was taking a little drawstring bag out of her belt pouch. From that, she slowly took out our carefully-made fake Emerald Heart. As she held it up in the moonlight, I watched refracted images dance among the blades of grass.

"Do you know," she said, "it's awfully pretty, but I just don't think it's my colour."

And she dropped it back into the bag, and tossed it at his feet.

Even if there hadn't been a rest of the plan, it would almost have been worth it for the look on his face. "...You went through all this...robbing the museum, bribing the police - " Ha. Even _he_ didn't know how we'd done it. " - just to throw it back at me? No. I don't think so. Not you."

Mindfang laughed. Say what you want, lady's got a good laugh for an archvillain. "Oh, how little you know, Doctor. How little you know. Perhaps the petty thief who tested your mettle in the past might not have done this. But I now speak on behalf of powers far greater than myself, a convocation of wills that could topple even you. This was no theft, Doctor. No: this was a _warning_."

She hadn't told any of us about this prior to it. She'd just said to stay quiet and let her do the talking. I was pretty sure she was spinning him a massive web of bullshit, but it was well-enough spun that I wondered.

"You, too, have been selfish. Greedy. Callous. _Grasping_. All fine qualities in our profession, to be sure - oh, don't pretend you're not a glorified pickpocket, Scratch, you run a bloody _casino_ for gods' sake - but you have _overreached_. There have been too many deaths for your movements to go unnoticed, too many lives brought to ruin for you to pass by without judgement."

Megido spat in the grass and pushed her knives in closer. Tula's hand, next to mine, started to shake.

"This is your warning: turn back. Turn back while you still can. Take your gem and return it to the museum; tell them it was your men who took it, to test their security measures, and upgrade all their systems out of your own pocket. You shall be seen in a fine light, the cleverest man in town - that's what you want, isn't it; to be the cleverest of them all? - and I shall simply melt away into the night. I don't need the whole _world_ to know that I won, Doctor. So long as I know it myself, it can be our little secret. And you can have your second chance to escape the pyre you have built for yourself."

She gave that a moment to sink in.

"Let him go, Megido."

Damara said something in East Beforan I didn't understand, but Meenah's face told me it wasn't pretty. Mindfang just did that thing she does with one eyebrow. "You know they'll never let you off planet if you kill him."

"Oh yeah?" All Damara's teeth were showing. "Maybe not caring. Hah? Maybe _worth it_ \- "

Mindfang just said, "Damara." We all knew it meant _don't make me fucking repeat myself_.

Damara understood too, thank goddess. She pushed him flat into the grass and sneered at him scrambling to his hands and knees. Then she looked up at Mindfang. "Ever see him again?" She dragged her thumb across her throat. "Like this. Slowly. Hah?"

"Very well," Mindfang allowed, "that's your prerogative. Come, ladies; I think our business here is done."

That was our cue to leave. We all started to walk away, Damara joining us. As soon as I was out of sight among the shadows, I looked back and watched Mindfang stare Scratch down. The end of another clash between old adversaries - only she was on her feet this time, while he was broken on the ground.

"The dawn is coming, Doctor," she said softly. "Stay out of the light...or burn."

Then she turned on her heel and swept away.

**== > FLASHBACK #6**

Damara left you all not long after that scene in the park, off to meet her boyfriend and try to wash some of the horrors out of her mind. Meenah went on her way not long after; the end of the con is when the fence does the most work, after all. She's got the buyer-related details to iron out before the grifters go in to seal the deal.

That leaves you, Porrim, Tula, Mindfang and Ancestor Leijon on the balcony at the hotel room, enjoying the first glow of a painless sunrise on the horizon.

"Sorry about dragonmom back there," says Tula with a sheepish grin. "I did tell her on the phone not to worry, but _noooo_ , she just had to swoop in and breathe fire everywhere, like always..."

Leijon smiles warmly. "She must love you furry much."

Tula shrugs and grins. "Yeah. Sure. She weird-human-family-loves me, if Alternians can even do that. - No offence."

That last bit was for you, and you almost laugh at how quickly her grin vanishes, bless her. "It's cool; I can imagine how weird it must be."

"At any rate," says Mindfang, smiling and magnanimous, "you needn't worry. For my part it was quite the pleasure to see her again."

"Oh yeah!" Tula snaps her fingers, remembering. "You two got into it once, right?"

Mindfang's smile has a different quality to it now. A wistful one, perhaps. "Not quite, not quite. One of these nights, though." Then she starts to grin again. "Speaking of things that are simply destined to be..." She drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and winks at you. "I think we'll leave the three of you alone. Ancestor Leijon - " This to Leijon, whose ears perk up at the mention of her name. " - would you care to join me for dinner, my dear?"

Leijon beams. "Sounds purrfect."

Mindfang takes her arm and escorts her gallantly from the balcony, and now there's just the three of you, and you and Porrim are both looking at Tula. You don't need to look at your girlfriend to know what she's thinking. Tula shuffles a foot. "...So, um...yeah, I...this is super awkward but I really, _really_ like you girlz. And I wanna do this more often. Without all the totally illegal stuff because I'm p sure dragonmom would legit incinerate me if I got my ass arrested again. But I know you both have your own reasons for going after assholes like Scratch, and I don't wanna get in the way of whatever you've got planned, so I guess I just - mmf - "

Once again, you thank goddess for Porrim and her well-timed kisses. By the time she's let Tula go, said perfect little tour guide / gamer / heist buddy / potential third person in this relationship no longer looks like she's in the frame of mind to ramble. Porrim smiles peacefully down at her; not for the first time, you enjoy the height difference between them. "Sweetie," she says gently, "why don't you come inside and sit down with us, and we can all talk about what we've got planned for the future."

It takes Tula a few seconds to remember how to talk. "...Yeah. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Let's do that. Yes."

You grin. You have to. A few days ago you thought you'd blown it with this girl forever, and look at you now. Just _look_ at the three of you now. "And hey - no matter what we decide, I'm really glad you were with us. You made our last score something special."

Tula grins, and it's just shy enough to make your insides melt. You are _such_ a sucker for the good girls. "Thanks. Weird as it is to say about something _that illegal_ \- I..." You watch, grinning even wider, as her brain catches up with the rest of the conversation. " - hold the phone. Your _last score_?"

"Like I said, babe," Porrim purrs, slipping an arm around her and guiding her indoors, "let's talk."

Still grinning so hard your jaw might crack, you follow them in.

**== > END FLASHBACK**

"And now you come to the part I don't understand," says Redglare, smoothing her fingers over Terezi's hair. Terezi's stretched out across the two-seater couch, her head in her mother's lap; Aradia is sitting quietly by her friend's feet, perhaps still mulling over her cousin's part in the drama. "The alibi was clever. Fooling Scratch with the replica was dumb luck; Mindfang's an actress to beat any grifter on the street, but you didn't have anyone close enough to him to know for certain that the psychology would work. But the Heart..." She shakes her head. "I refuse to believe my blood would allow you to fence it, knowing what could be done with it instead. So. The question. For those of you who _were_ in this...ridiculous caper for the money, where does the money come from? After all that you went through to get that gem...how did you ever manage to sell it?"

"Honest truth?" You grin. "We did something better."

**== > Roxy: Do the big reveal.**

"My dears," said Mindfang, "I do believe the game has changed."

Remember when she said that?

Here's what she said right after.

"Why play to the strengths of one member of the party when you can play to all of them? Do we not have two accomplished grifters in our midst? And the finest and most ruthless fence ever to grace the streets of our fair city? We are playing a small game, selling one Emerald Heart. Why sell one...when we can sell _seven_?"

Everyone was real quiet for a bit while that sank in. Mindfang's sorta known for having big ideas, but this one? This was _huge_. Meenah was the first one to shake off the shock. She sniffed and picked at her claws. "I can hook ya six buyers."

Tula frowned. "Not seven?"

"Ah, but the seventh sale is the most crucial one of all - the sale of a far less trivial lie." Exposition mode Mindfang. "The six buyers will each believe they have the true Emerald Heart...but Doctor Scratch, in the end, must believe the same. The seventh stone we shall sell to him, along with our silence, and thus buy back our lives."

Leijon steepled her fingers and gave Mindfang a careful look. You don't survive as a master catburglar without being careful. "Will he bite?"

Mindfang was wearing that grin she wears when she knows she's goddamn brilliant. "Oh, he will do more than bite, my pet. He will swallow it hook, line and sinker."

Meenah cackled and gave her a bit of applause for that - lady loves her fish puns - but I wasn't so confident. "Seven replicas, though. That's a big ask. I'm not saying I can't do it - I can get the mats and the loan of a workshop on favours alone - I'm just saying it'll take a while. The tough one will be the first one, getting that done properly before the Doc catches up with us. After that...I guess we gotta tweak our cover stories depending on how long it takes."

Everyone started looking all worried, like maybe this time we reached just a bit too far, when Tula suddenly piped up, "No, no, hey, it's okay, I think I got this."

Porrim's face was a _picture_. "Beg pardon, sweetie?"

Tula just shrugged and grinned. "I know a guy. He's got this rad new piece of tech that - ah, hell, he explains it better. Why don't I introduce you? Been meaning to go see him anyways."

So we went to see her guy, Mituna - the _worst_ mouth planetside, swear to goddess, but his tech's the real deal. This new machine he'd been working on was designed as an alternative to 3D printing - works with lasers, don't understand it much beyond that - but he made a perfect copy of Mindfang's diamond earring in less than twenty minutes and she was impressed enough that she took both of them just so she could be _sure_ she had the real one back.

When we told him who the mark was, he said _now there'th an athhole I alwayth wanted to fuck_.

By the time the cops turned us loose, Meenah had all eight gems in the bag and she was already setting up meetings with the buyers. All of them wealthy private collectors, none of them with any sort of dangerous connections that could get us killed later. Say what you want about the sins of her caste, that woman knows her shit.

After we dealt with Scratch, the last stage of the con was on. Mindfang, Porrim and I took two marks each. Story was simple: the Doc was going to replace the Heart with a fake (true, but not as far as the Doc knew) and feed the press some cover story or other to save face (also true), and we were holding a silent auction for the real Heart, closed bids, winner takes all (total bullshit).

Here's the convincer.

Remember the camera Porrim had on her when the cops grabbed us up? The one that had our alibi on it when you were all expecting heist pictures?

That's right, kids: there were _two_ cameras.

Right before we got arrested, I dropped my one - with those pictures of Leijon in her mask hanging from Mindfang's line, holding up the Heart in her hand - into the mailbox, first class. Goddess bless the postal service, because it was on Meenah's desk the very next morning. She had those photos ready to go in time to convince the marks what we were showing them was the real deal, and every single one of them bought it. They had no idea how we'd gotten away with it, but they bought it.

The top bid was up in the millions.

Split that kind of money six ways - because Tula wouldn't take a cent of it and Tuna was happy enough just to screw the Doc - and you've still got enough to get out of the business for good, if that's what you want.

And if the marks do ever find out we sold them a fake...

Who're they gonna tell?

**== > Roxy: Onward...**

You're standing on the doorstep of a prim little town house, bidding your hostess farewell and surprised to find you hope it's not for the last time. You've warmed up to Redglare over the course of explaining yourself to her, and maybe it's not too much to hope that she's warmed up to you. You can at least expect not to get killed any time soon, which is a lot better than you feared.

"Just one more question, before you go," she says to you, and you turn back from watching Tula hold the cab door open for Porrim. "If you sold six fakes to your buyers and a seventh, in another sense, to Scratch, that still leaves the eighth gem. The real one. Tell me what you did with it."

You smile knowingly. "Sorry to disappoint you, ma'am, but in order to protect those involved I'm afraid we gotta keep that secret for now. I can, however, assure you that it is in a better place, doing better things, and there it's gonna stay."

She nods, just once. "I see. Good enough, Lalonde; good enough. Tonight, you live."

"Awesome." You grin and offer her a parting handshake. "This the part where you tell me to take care of your daughter?"

This time, when she clasps your hand you feel like the respect on her side is genuine too. "Take care of each other," she tells you solemnly. "All of you. Now hurry - shuttles, unlike dragons, do not wait."

You throw her a playful salute. "Yes ma'am."

"Ancestor," she corrects you quietly.

For a moment you're not sure you heard her correctly. To use the Ancestor title without a name after it implies direct descent. You'd only say that to your _own_ ancestor, if you had one.

And the only human equivalent of a troll's ancestor...is...

You take a deep breath to steady yourself, you open your hands, palm up, and you dip your head and drop your eyes in the best imitation of an Alternian bow that you can muster.

"...Ancestor."

When you look up, she's smiling.

"Shoo," she says.

So you shoo, as much knowing you've got a shuttle to catch as thinking it's a good idea to follow orders. Tula is holding the door for you too. She doesn't say a word, but her breathless grin tells you she got the message.

You're part of the family.

It's a wonder you keep your hands off each other long enough to get into the cab.

**== > Roxy: Be yourself six days later.**

It's New Year's Eve, and you're chilly and nervous again. Practically the whole colony has turned out for the test run - not exactly a shocker, since the mass-appearifier (if it works) is going to make everything up here run a whole lot more smoothly. You're packed into the crowd, which is mostly carapacians with a few trolls and the odd human for flavour, you on Porrim's left and Tula on her right. You'd rather be tucked between them, but at least Porrim is warm.

"Shit better fuckin' work after all this," you mutter. "See her yet?"

Tula is still peering through a little pair of binoculars. "Nope - oh, wait, yeah, there she is - " She passes them over to you. "Check it out. Up on top of the gizmo."

"Appearifier," you and Porrim chorus.

"Yeah, that."

You bring the binoculars up to your eyes. Sure enough, on top of the enormous gizmo (dammit, now she's got you doing it), is your mother, wearing a sleeved white coat and a pair of pink-tinted goggles. She's talking to a few similarly white-coated assistants, giving final orders - oh, that's a megaphone in her hand. You start to grin. "Here we go..."

A moment later, you hear your mother's voice.

"LADIES, GENTLEMEN, GENDERQUEER AND UNDECIDED - GOOD EVENING AND WELCOME TO THE TEST RUN!"

A ragged cheer goes up from the crowd. You cheer along with them, adding "GO MOM!" to the din and laughing when Tula adds _YEAH GO ROXY'S MOM!_ right after you.

"THANK YOU, THANK YOU - WE'LL DO OUR BEST TO GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CHEER ABOUT! EVERYONE TO YOUR STATIONS, PLEASE! T MINUS SIXTY SECONDS TO TEST FIRE!"

The atmosphere grows tense with anticipation. You and the rest of the crowd start counting down aloud the moment they switch on the big countdown clock at twenty seconds to go. When you finally get down to "THREE! TWO! ONE!" your heart is in your throat -

And then, from the muzzle of the appearifier, a beam of green light, sharp as the facets of an emerald...

_Poit._

_Thmp._

In the middle of the landing zone, settled comfortably on a crash mat after a fall of a couple of feet, is a large, orange pumpkin.

For a moment or two, that's it.

Then -

_Poit. Thmp. Poit. Poit-thmp, thmp._

Two. Three, four pumpkins.

_Poitpoitpoitpoitpoit-_

Suddenly they're everywhere, popping back into existence all over the landing area and bouncing on to the mats amidst the swelling cheers and applause from the crowd - pumpkins. A whole goddamn _field_ 's worth of pumpkins, perfectly ripe, delivered...almost on schedule. The first ever successful mass appearification is happening, right here, right now.

And it couldn't have happened without you.

"HELL YES," you shout into the roar of the crowd. "HELL FUCKING YES."

Tula gives a whoop of delight. "Beats the shit outta fireworks!"

Porrim pulls you both in close and kisses you each on the cheek in turn. "Happy new year, babes."

"Oh, it's gonna be," you say, tucking into her side and sharing a high-five with Tula across her chest. "It's gonna be."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks now de-anon'd:
> 
> \- Dax, my awesome beta/sanity-checker  
> \- Megan, my supportive, understanding partner  
> \- all the friends who had faith in me (you know who you are)  
> \- Py and Scruff, the housemates who made sure I ate  
> \- you, dear recipient, for giving me the chance to prove I could do this.


End file.
